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The triple-bottom-line: framing of trade-offs in sustainability planning practice

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Abstract

Sustainability principles are at the forefront of regional planning. In Hawaii, the movement toward “sustainability” gave way to revisiting the State Plan. This paper uses a case study of the Hawaii 2050 Sustainability Plan (Hawaii 2050) to illustrate how adopting popular notions of sustainability, without critical examination of how the respective policy frames diverge or interrelate, can lead to “tautological traps.” In the case of Hawaii 2050, the “triple-bottom-line” (embedded within sustainable development) became the dominant sustainability frame during the solicitation of public input and was thus used to guide the planning discourse. The application of triple-bottom-line concepts at the level of policy and planning led to a process that polarized economic and environmental interests. While the goals of sustainable development and the use of triple-bottom-line concepts are useful for planners, we argue that they should be applied within the parameters of ecological sustainability in a US regional context, lest resulting plans continue to allow the momentum of development to override ecological concerns.

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Notes

  1. Although there are many frames stemming from sustainability discourses, ecological sustainability, sustainable development, and triple-bottom-line concepts consistently appeared in the Hawaii 2050 planning process. Other concepts, like ecological modernization, while important within academic arenas do not tend to appear in community planning dialogues.

  2. Cultural and societal interests did not seem to be similarly affected—as is common and noted in Gunder (2006).

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the reviewers for their insightful and helpful comments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Urban & Regional Planning, University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2424 Maile Way, Honolulu, HI, 96822, USA

    Makena Coffman & Karen Umemoto

Authors
  1. Makena Coffman
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  2. Karen Umemoto
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Makena Coffman.

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Readers should send their comments on this paper to: BhaskarNath@aol.com within 3 months of publication of this issue.

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Coffman, M., Umemoto, K. The triple-bottom-line: framing of trade-offs in sustainability planning practice. Environ Dev Sustain 12, 597–610 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-009-9213-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-009-9213-4

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